4 ms·

What's even more sad is, from nearly all the child posts, the assumption is made that the guy "won" $400,000. The article states: "Koum was eating into his $40

What's even more sad is, from nearly all the child posts, the assumption is made that the guy "won" $400,000. The article states: "Koum was eating into his $400,000 in savings from Yahoo, and drifting." Sure it's a lot of money. But the guy didn't win the lottery. He earned it. According to TFA, he grew up in Ukraine in a house with no hot water, immigrated to the US without his father, stashed 20 notebooks in his suitcase so he would avoid paying for school supplies, was on food stamps and then on disability assistance when his mother was diagnosed with cancer. What kind of sad world would draw a the conclusion that he wasn't "conscious of the general socio-economic issues at hand to know that's still a large sum of money"?

adamdavis 13y ago
I may have read these posts incorrectly, but I don't think anyone made the claim that he won this money. There was simply a poster who stated that 400,000 is comparable to an amount of money you would receive if you won a lottery.
efuquen 13y ago
I was attacking the flipant attitude towards $400,000 by the OP. When I refer to being ignorant of socio-economic issues I wasn't talking about Koum, I've never seen him make any statement like that for me to judge his attitude by and I thought the context of my comment was clear in that. But, in terms of Koum, he comes from an immigrant family that was lucky enough to have the ability to move to the US, this alone hints to me while they might have been poor by our standards they must have been doing well enough to make such a big move and afford it, people who do that are usually more well off then the general population they are immigrating from. Clearly he suffered some hardship when he was young and moved through it, that's commendable. But at 18 he got what seems like a pretty good gig at Ernst & Young and post that a good job at Yahoo, enough of a good job to save up almost half million dollars over 9 years, enough to basically take a year off from working and get to travel around a bit ... not too shabby. I'm sure plenty of people wish they had the ability to do this, but probably never will. I'm not trying to detract from what he earned, and he certainly had a humble background and hardships while young with his mother being sick, but the idea he went from rags to riches really rubs me the wrong way. There are people who live in rags and I have a feeling most of them haven't had the opportunities Koum had. Whether the man himself is humble about it I don't know, I can't say because I never met him and I don't know his views, but I do know that the media portrayal of his background seems over the top. Let's give up this false narrative, humble beginnings isn't the same as being dirt poor and he certainly was quite rich when he started WhatsApp.

adamdavis 13y ago

I may have read these posts incorrectly, but I don't think anyone made the claim that he won this money. There was simply a poster who stated that 400,000 is comparable to an amount of money you would receive if you won a lottery.

efuquen 13y ago

I was attacking the flipant attitude towards $400,000 by the OP. When I refer to being ignorant of socio-economic issues I wasn't talking about Koum, I've never seen him make any statement like that for me to judge his attitude by and I thought the context of my comment was clear in that. But, in terms of Koum, he comes from an immigrant family that was lucky enough to have the ability to move to the US, this alone hints to me while they might have been poor by our standards they must have been doing well enough to make such a big move and afford it, people who do that are usually more well off then the general population they are immigrating from. Clearly he suffered some hardship when he was young and moved through it, that's commendable. But at 18 he got what seems like a pretty good gig at Ernst & Young and post that a good job at Yahoo, enough of a good job to save up almost half million dollars over 9 years, enough to basically take a year off from working and get to travel around a bit ... not too shabby. I'm sure plenty of people wish they had the ability to do this, but probably never will. I'm not trying to detract from what he earned, and he certainly had a humble background and hardships while young with his mother being sick, but the idea he went from rags to riches really rubs me the wrong way. There are people who live in rags and I have a feeling most of them haven't had the opportunities Koum had. Whether the man himself is humble about it I don't know, I can't say because I never met him and I don't know his views, but I do know that the media portrayal of his background seems over the top. Let's give up this false narrative, humble beginnings isn't the same as being dirt poor and he certainly was quite rich when he started WhatsApp.